Tag: Climate lawsuit

Today 900 Dutch civilians, organised by Climate Change action comittee Urgenda (from: Urgence Agenda), won a historic lawsuit against the Dutch state, demanding that the state delivers on its promisses made in Kyoto and EU-treaties. The dutch conservative and neoLiberal parties that have been in charge ever since the turn of the century had so far refused to take major actions to help the environment. The “why disrupt society if there is still some doubt” was accepted by the majority of the parliament all that time.

In 2013 we had enough of it and went to court and today the judge said we were right. So here we are, fresh victory in the pocket and the government flabbergasted. I expect some staring in the headlights from the goverment and parliament, so I guess we’ll have to nudge them in the right direction. Here we go.

First let’s make the judges verdict S.M.A.R.T

“Lower Hollands CO2 output by 25% in 2020 compared to the Kyoto baseline in 1990”. WOW.

So that means reduce CO2 emissions by 8 billion kilos per year for almost 6 years

If we analyze the sad numbers from the bureau of statistics we discover that:
– big industry has done nothing in 25 years
– small business has already reached -25% (do they have a business advantage by going green?)
– Coalplants burn more
– Waste incinneraotrs burn way more
– Traffic (driving and flying)
-households do marginally better

So what is the action plan for the next 5 years?

1. We remove Megacorps from the negotiation tables. They have done NOTHING in the last quarter century but fund extreme right “think tanks” and pay posh firms to greenwash their results. The door is there, bye bye! We will tell you the new rules when we are done.
Ahhhhhhhhhh……… That feels good, now we can take serious actions
2. The Taxfreetour Apple, Shell, royal family, Nestlé, Coca Cola, Ikea & Co – leaves nothing in the war chest so important national questions (this climate thing is one of them) never got the funding they deserve. The 1%’ers were enjoying the results. Wasn’t tax at one time the national crowdfunding campaign for good ideas?
3. Let’s start listening to SMB to learn how to really make companies sustainable
4. Transportation MUST defossilize and quickly too. We have electric bikes, scooters and cars. Now we only have to do busses and trucks and ferries.
5. Kerosene tax and because 25€ tickets to Costa del Sol are ruining the planet.
6. Building code changes tomorrow: only zero net energy allowed from now on, Passiv-Haus from 2020 onwards
7. Burning waste as a heat source…….poof ….we’ll up cycle from now on
8. Heat distribution networks are based on coal and gas plants so no thank you. The glasshouse farmers will switch to Geo-heat where that make sense.
9. New tax on solar panel less roofs (rate based on wasted solar energy)
10. National insullation campaign. We have 1.2 million “non productive” working age people, they’re the heroes of tomorrow when they roll out the insullation program.

So it’s really easy actually: remove Megacorps from policy making, make plans, roll them out, collect taxes from the polluters and the 1%’ers.

ps. What is this going to cost? Going to a new renewable society (in the 17th century Holland ruled the world on wind power) is the only solution. I went fossil free for €15k and will write it of in 10 years after which I will save 150€/month that I can invest in my local economy forever. That will change the economy in unforeseen ways, but my gut says that that is better than praying to Putin and Saudi Arabia.